The musings, recipes and adventures of a girl that loves to eat

Bacon, Onion, and Cheddar Scones

I love breakfast foods. Pancakes, muffins, french toast, poached eggs with toast, even cereal from a box. I could (and do) eat them any time of day. So it drives me absolutely crazy that I seem to be unable to make a decent batch of scones! Seriously, I haven’t made scones that I would even serve to my dog in over 5 years. All I want is to make scones that are crunchy on the outside and light, moist, and flavorful on the inside. How hard can it be?! No matter what recipe I followed, I never had good results.

I hadn’t even thought about making scones in a long time (I guess I was scarred by previous attempts…), until I went to a bakery and tried their Cheddar and Scallion Scones. They were everything I’d imagined a perfect scone to be and I decided to hop back on the scone-making bandwagon. One of my friends recommended a scone recipe from Eat, Live, Run and she said she’d never gone wrong with the recipe. I gave it a try, and, sure enough, the scones were great! I only baked two, and I froze the rest on a cookie sheet and then put them in a plastic baggie so that I can have freshly baked scones any morning I want. While it sounds melodramatic, this scone recipe has potentially revolutionized my weekend breakfast routine.

I like to think of this scone recipe as a blank slate: depending on what I’m in the mood for, I can change the add-ins. The things that you’re adding to the scones should have a volume of around a cup, and if you want to make sweeter scones, you can bump up the sugar to 1/2 a cup. Bacon and onion cook down, so that’s why I (arbitrarily) used volumes of 2/3 cup below. Other flavor possibilities: chocolate and dried cherries, blueberries and lemon zest, dried cranberries and pecan.

2 cups all purpose flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

6 T cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1/2 cup + 2 T cream

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

2/3 cup diced onion

2/3 cup (about 4 or 5 strips of raw bacon) diced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Sautee onion and bacon together over medium heat until onion starts to brown and the bacon is a little less cooked that you’d usually use. Drain bacon and onions on a paper towel and let cool while you prepare the other ingredients.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers and work mixture together until it resembles coarse sand. Add the cheddar, bacon and onions.

Add the cream and mix with a spatula or your hands until a dough forms. Make an eight inch circle with the dough and slice into 8 small wedges. Place wedges on a lined baking sheet, and bake for 16-18 minutes, until golden brown.

If freezing the scones, after slicing them place them on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the freezer. Leave in freezer for up to 3 hours, and then put the frozen scones in a plastic bag. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 425, place scones directly on a lined cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes.